Former Political Prisoner Ihar Karnei Says He Is Abroad Without Valid Documents

For­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er and ex-Radio Svabo­da jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei has said that after his release and forced removal from Belarus, he found him­self abroad with­out valid doc­u­ments con­firm­ing his legal sta­tus.

Part of the exhi­bi­tion ded­i­cat­ed to Igor Kor­ney at the exhi­bi­tion “The Cost of Dis­sent: Doc­u­men­tary Evi­dence of the Con­se­quences of Polit­i­cal Repres­sion in Belarus”. Vil­nius (Lithua­nia), June 26, 2026

Accord­ing to Karnei, the Lithuan­ian nation­al visa issued to him a year ago expired on July 10. At the same time, con­sid­er­a­tion of his appli­ca­tion for inter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion in Por­tu­gal, where he now lives with his fam­i­ly, has effec­tive­ly stalled.

“The last piece of paper that gave me at least some legit­i­ma­cy in this world has final­ly expired. I’m talk­ing about the Lithuan­ian nation­al visa that I received short­ly after the June 2025 expul­sion — the first of the more or less large-scale deals involv­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. To be pre­cise, there was first a short two-week visa issued direct­ly at the Medininkai bor­der cross­ing — my eyes had bare­ly adjust­ed to the light after the KGB hoods. Then, fol­low­ing appli­ca­tions from human rights defend­ers and my for­mer employ­ers, it was upgrad­ed on July 10 last year to a one-year visa — and that is the one that has now expired,” he wrote on Face­book.

Karnei said that after mov­ing to the Azores, he ini­tial­ly tried to legalise his stay through fam­i­ly reuni­fi­ca­tion but was refused because he was unable to pro­vide a crim­i­nal record cer­tifi­cate.

“The ini­tial attempt to join my fam­i­ly auto­mat­i­cal­ly as the third fam­i­ly mem­ber was unsuc­cess­ful. The local offi­cials are sim­ply obsessed with crim­i­nal record cer­tifi­cates. And that applies every­where — from the office I men­tioned to com­mer­cial banks. They even threat­ened to deport me to the coun­try of my first entry if I failed to pro­duce one by the appoint­ed date. For­tu­nate­ly, Portugal’s enforce­ment sys­tem is so slow that all those threats turned out to be noth­ing more than hot air,” he wrote.

doc­u­ment con­firm­ing that his appli­ca­tion had been accept­ed for con­sid­er­a­tion, but it expired more than two months ago. Accord­ing to him, he has so far been unable to obtain a new doc­u­ment or any infor­ma­tion about the sta­tus of his case.

An addi­tion­al prob­lem arose when the Belaru­sian author­i­ties inval­i­dat­ed his pass­port, even though it for­mal­ly remains valid until 2030. Karnei not­ed that Por­tuguese author­i­ties had nev­er­the­less accept­ed the doc­u­ment when he signed an employ­ment con­tract, opened a bank account and reg­is­tered with the tax author­i­ties.

“All things con­sid­ered, the only thing left is to relax and go with the flow. The only tru­ly frus­trat­ing part is being tied indef­i­nite­ly to one place. The Lithuan­ian visa had at least giv­en me some free­dom of move­ment, where­as my cur­rent sta­tus is not far from that of a home­less per­son,” the for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er con­clud­ed.

Radio Svabo­da jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei was detained in July 2023 and sen­tenced in March 2024 to three years in prison on charges of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, he coop­er­at­ed with the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), which had been des­ig­nat­ed an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” and his report­ing alleged­ly “cre­at­ed a false impres­sion of the eco­nom­ic, social, mil­i­tary and inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion in the Repub­lic of Belarus.” He was lat­er sen­tenced to an addi­tion­al eight months in prison on charges of per­sis­tent dis­obe­di­ence to the law­ful demands of the prison admin­is­tra­tion (Part 1, Arti­cle 411 of the Crim­i­nal Code). Karnei was released and forcibly tak­en to Lithua­nia in June 2025.